Australian Journal of Public Administration最新文献

{"title":"Children, COVID, and confusion: How frontline workers cope with the challenges of vaccine mandates","authors":"Jake Harvey,&nbsp;Katie Attwell","doi":"10.1111/1467-8500.12567","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8500.12567","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>With the emergence of COVID-19, many governments around the world co-oped non-health actors into enforcing comprehensive mandatory vaccination policies. Implementing these policies can be challenging, creating irreconcilable goals and problems with knowledge and understanding of areas outside the implementers’ direct field of expertise or scope of work. We know very little about how such frontline workers cope with these challenges associated with implementing policies whose goals lie well outside their remit (which we describe as generating exogenous policy pressures), and what this means for the operation of the policies. This article uses policies in place prior to the pandemic to fill this gap. It examines attitudes and experiences of frontline childcare educators who implement Australia's No Jab, No Play childhood vaccine mandate policies within the states of New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria. Through qualitative analysis of interview and focus group data, we find that these frontline workers cope with moral conflict, confusion, and a lack of knowledge by moving against clients: they rigidly follow the rules beyond legislative requirements, and sometimes break them, generating a new coping category we call ‘rigid rule breaking’. However, their need to employ coping strategies is informed by the extent to which government has designed the policy to coerce the behaviour of the providers, families, or both. The implementation of more coercive variants of No Jab, No Play policies deviates more from what legislators intended, while providers given scope to make their own decisions about enrolling unvaccinated children report satisfaction in their decision-making.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Points for practitioners</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Australian state mandatory vaccination policies generally require childcare providers to exclude unvaccinated children.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Street level bureaucrats face pressures when implementing coercive policies exogenous to their remit.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>They may simplify policy implementation in ways that counter governments’ goals.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Actors given more discretion about passing on coercion to policy targets demonstrate better understanding and ownership of policies.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47373,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Public Administration","volume":"82 3","pages":"346-367"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8500.12567","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49054213","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A think piece: Modifying children's court care plans to acknowledge how poverty and disadvantage can be a causal factor in a case of child abuse and neglect","authors":"F. Ainsworth","doi":"10.1111/1467-8500.12568","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8500.12568","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47373,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Public Administration","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42438641","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Indigenous institutions and local government in the Torres Strait","authors":"Bartholomew Matthew Stanford","doi":"10.1111/1467-8500.12565","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8500.12565","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>The relationships between local governments and Indigenous institutions in Australia are unstudied, despite both being oriented to the local level. Related research focuses on the performance of Indigenous local governments, Indigenous forms of governance and its relation to local government, relations between local governments and Indigenous communities, and the intercultural dynamics of Indigenous and Western governance frameworks in local governments. This article presents the findings of a study that examines relations between local governments and Indigenous institutions in the Torres Strait, a relationship that is framed by s. 9(3) of the <i>Local Government Act 2009</i> (Qld) (LGA) that allows local governments to ‘take account of Aboriginal tradition and Island custom’. A framework adapted from health-related studies, consisting of three alternative policy approaches—<i>mainstreaming</i>, <i>indigenisation</i>, and <i>hybridisation</i>—is used in this study to characterise relationships between local governments and Indigenous institutions. Kinship and country, two important Indigenous institutions, are marginalised in Queensland's mainstream system of local government, which in turn creates obstacles for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from participating and engaging in local government processes.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Points for practitioners</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Government that does not recognise the institutions which are fundamental to how Indigenous people govern will marginalise them from power.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Indigenous institutions are legitimate actors whose voice must be considered within mainstreaming discussions.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Representation within indigenous institutions influences local government relations.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47373,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Public Administration","volume":"82 3","pages":"308-324"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8500.12565","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42356009","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Modifying children's court care plans to acknowledge poverty and disadvantage","authors":"Frank Ainsworth","doi":"10.1111/1467-8500.12568","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8500.12568","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This think piece suggests that Children's Court Care Plans should include a new section that documents poverty and social disadvantage, especially of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, when they are under investigation for child abuse and neglect. New South Wales in Australia is used as the exemplar state, but this suggestion may find an echo elsewhere.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Points for practitioners</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>As a general proposition social and economic circumstances should be considered in addition to parental dysfunction in child protection proceedings in Children's court.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Care Plans prepared for hearings in the NSW Children's Court, often developed in response to serious harm report investigations, currently do not contain information about parents' poverty and social disadvantage and hence decontextualise family living circumstances.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Consistent with international evidence, Care Plans should require information about parents' socioeconomic situation, including social disadvantage of residential neighbourhood, status and cost of household tenancy, and household income.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Taking account of social and economic circumstances has the potential to generate savings in out-of-home care that can be re-allocated to support services to reduce poverty and social disadvantage and thereby reduce the need for removal of children from parental care.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47373,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Public Administration","volume":"82 3","pages":"394-399"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8500.12568","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50116369","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Work redesign in development perspective: An empirical study of multitasking among civil servants in Malawi","authors":"Cheng Chen,&nbsp;Bright Thokozani Chipao,&nbsp;Qing Miao","doi":"10.1111/1467-8500.12566","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8500.12566","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Civil servants in many developing countries are increasingly faced with multitask situations at work to improve the efficiency of public sectors. Although multitasking might boost employee productivity, its potentially negative impact on other areas of employees’ lives has been ignored. Drawing upon the conservation of resources theory, our research aims to investigate whether, how, and when multitasking at work decreases the subjective well-being of employees in the public sector. Using a two-wave survey of 164 civil servants in Malawi, our findings showed that multitasking at work was positively related to employees’ negative affect and negatively related to their satisfaction with life and positive affect through emotional exhaustion. Moreover, the study found that polychronicity, which refers to one's preference to handle more than one task at the same time, moderated the relationship between multitasking and emotional exhaustion, such that the association described above was weaker when an employee's polychronicity was higher. Finally, the indirect impact of multitasking on positive affect through emotional exhaustion was also moderated by polychronicity. These findings provide some theoretical and managerial implications for public sector in developing countries on how to focus on employee well-being while using multitasking work design.</p>","PeriodicalId":47373,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Public Administration","volume":"82 2","pages":"210-227"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48070359","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Assessing policy analytical capacity in contemporary governments: New measures and metrics","authors":"Andrea Migone,&nbsp;Michael Howlett","doi":"10.1111/1467-8500.12564","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8500.12564","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Assessing the policy analytical capacity (PAC) of governments has suffered in the past from the anecdotal nature of most studies, leading to different evaluations of specific analytical activities and of the overall competences and capacities of governments as a whole. What is needed to advance the field is a set of metrics that can generate insights into the capabilities of different units and how changes to their and overall government capacity develop over time. Focusing on this component of policy capacity, we map and measure the distribution of policy professionals in the provincial, territorial, and federal governments in Canada. Our measures are tested against two major findings regarding PAC: first that variation among governmental PAC varies by size of the civil service, with smaller jurisdictions likely to have less capacity, and second, that concentration of professionals in specific issue areas underscores that area's political and/or policy salience to the government concerned. Both measures prove robust in assessing Canadian government activities in these areas.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Points for practitioners</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Policy capacity is acknowledged as a significant perquisite for policy success.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>While some general frameworks exist highlighting policy relevant competences and capabilities important to policy success, how to measure these remains under-investigated.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Focusing on policy analytical capacity, this paper draws on the literature on policy professionals to develop two measures of this component of policy capacity linked to the extent to which an agency focuses on analysis and the proportion of their staff who work on the subject compared to other agencies.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>The measures are deployed in an illustrative case of Canada and Canadian governments at the territorial, provincial, and federal level which confirms their utility and robustness as indicators of the different levels of analytical capacity different agencies employ.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47373,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Public Administration","volume":"82 1","pages":"3-25"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46624211","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The role of Australian local government in economic development: Building international engagement capacity","authors":"Matthew Walker,&nbsp;Shea X. Fan,&nbsp;Xueli Huang,&nbsp;Timothy Bartram","doi":"10.1111/1467-8500.12562","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8500.12562","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Sister city relationships (SCRs) are a platform through which local governments (LGs) engage internationally. Increasingly, there is an expectation that such international engagement delivers economic opportunities and returns. Many LGs are therefore pursuing local economic development (LED) through their SCRs. Drawing on a national survey of Australian LGs (stage 1) and interviews with key council staff and stakeholders in five LG areas maintaining Australia–China SCRs (stage 2), this paper contributes to growing literature on LED by examining how LGs have developed their own capacities and supported local small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to engage internationally. Our findings reveal insights into how Australian LGs have achieved international engagement through two strategies that leverage their SCRs, namely building government's capabilities and developing SMEs’ capabilities. This paper contributes new insights into the evolving role of LGs in LED, including both current experimentation, challenges, and future opportunities.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Points for practitioners</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>A growing number of Australian local governments pursue LED through their Chinese sister city relationships.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Supporting the internationalisation of SMEs is an emerging component of local government pursuit of LED.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>International engagement of local governments has necessitated enhanced capacities in human, external, and financial resources.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Findings highlight the unique and often overlooked role of local-to-local diplomatic and economic relations.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47373,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Public Administration","volume":"83 1","pages":"3-23"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8500.12562","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45395860","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Research use and publishing diversity: The role of organisation research publishing for policy and practice","authors":"Amanda Lawrence","doi":"10.1111/1467-8500.12563","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8500.12563","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Digital technologies have enhanced the capacity for organisations across many sectors to produce, publish, and disseminate research in a variety of formats, and a great deal of it is sought and used in public policy and practice-related research, yet this diversity is often overlooked in studies of research use. While the need for diverse research sources and formats for public policy and practice is increasingly acknowledged, there have been few studies which articulate and categorise what this diversity looks like in practice, and how research is filtered and selected based on genre, source, and other facets. This article reports on a large-scale online survey and semi-structured interviews with research users across multiple sectors in Australia on the materials they access and use for policy and practice work. The results indicate that research users are active information seekers who require online access to diverse genres and formats produced by a range of sources and sectors. However, respondents also faced many barriers to research use, including the cost of subscriptions for academic journals, discoverability of reports and data, poor management of publications by organisations including government, and the time required for filtering and evaluation. Based on these findings I argue that policy research requires a far greater variety of genres and sources than is generally recognised with implications for the way research use and the research publishing system is understood and managed in Australia.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Points for practitioners</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Policy research and implementation requires diverse online sources and resources from multiple sectors, including reports, discussion papers, evaluations, and data, produced by organisations (grey literature), as well as journals and books.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>However, this paper finds there are major barriers to discovery, filtering, and access to diverse research publications for practitioners, resulting in poor productivity and policy outcomes.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>To improve the use of evidence for policy and practice, we must invest in efficient discovery, access, and management systems for diverse research publications.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47373,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Public Administration","volume":"82 1","pages":"46-68"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8500.12563","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43673324","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Centralisation versus regionalisation: Designing the Sixth National Mental Health Plan","authors":"Sebastian Rosenberg,&nbsp;Kenny Lawson,&nbsp;Ian Hickie","doi":"10.1111/1467-8500.12560","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8500.12560","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In response to the recent Productivity Commission report into mental health, the previous Federal Government announced its intention to produce a new national agreement that lays the platform for Australia's sixth national mental health plan. It has been recommended mental health move to a more regional model of governance and planning, away from a centralised, top-down approach, partly in response to broader reforms affecting health care, and partly in direct response to consistent inquiry evidence that the mental health system remains in crisis. The past 30 years of mental health planning have been centralised. Successive national plans set a broad framework, with real decisions about mental health funding and service allocation made in the health departments of our capital cities. Will the next plan sponsor or inhibit regionality in mental health planning? This paper assesses Australia's historical approach to health planning particularly as it affected mental health and the costs arising. In learning these lessons, we propose the necessary ingredients to facilitate a regional, innovative, and effective approach to decentralised planning, for better mental health outcomes. We cannot afford to replicate the failed planning approaches of the past.</p>","PeriodicalId":47373,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Public Administration","volume":"82 2","pages":"290-301"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8500.12560","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49596505","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Politicisation of the public service during democratic backsliding: Alternative perspectives","authors":"B. Guy Peters,&nbsp;Jon Pierre","doi":"10.1111/1467-8500.12561","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8500.12561","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p><i>This Research Note explores the issue of politicisation of the public service against the backdrop of the emergence of populism</i>. A common feature of populist governments is a lack of trust in the civil service and its willingness to implement the populist political project. An important consequence of marginalising the civil service and its expertise in policy making is detrimental to policymaking. Also, increasing politicisation, that is replacing career public servants with people loyal to the populist regime, drains the public service of organisational memory on how to deal with policy issues. However, liberal democracies in many countries, too, have experienced increasing politicisation over the past decade, albeit within the confines of liberal democratic rules and norms. This emerging, more politicised model of the civil service assumes that neutrality can be an impediment to effective governance and that public servants should be committed to the program of the government. The civil service would be expected to support the government of the day actively and energetically, and therefore there would be fewer barriers. Thus, while politicisation in different forms is a feature of both liberal and populist government, the consequences of politicisation are different in the two regimes.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Points for practitioners</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>In liberal democracies, the civil service offers expertise to support politicians in the policy-making process. Populist governments, emphasizing loyalty to the regime more than expertise, tend to increase the number of political appointees in the public service.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Most of the populist leaders elected are political outsiders and do not want to be constrained by what they consider to be entrenched and self-serving elites.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>The most pressing dangers for liberal democracy are when populist governments consider policies that would change political and social rights.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Liberal democratic government, too, have increased political control of the public service although without altering the rules and norms of democratic governance.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47373,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Public Administration","volume":"81 4","pages":"629-639"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8500.12561","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45447731","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}